From this weekend at Whiskeytown Lake.  Big one at 3.04 lbs

 

 

^Hunchbass of Notre Dame.^

3 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

^Hunchbass of Notre Dame.^

Yeaaaaa.....he a little messed up but still trucking along

Return trip to "Lake 19".  Last time I was here was April.  

 

Discovered a small crack in the hull of my main kayak, so until I get a chance to repair it I'm back on my old orange Tarpon 100.

 

At the lake I found the curly-leaf pondweed fully died back, as hoped.  Also found a whopping algae bloom and visibility of a foot or less, down from about 4-5 feet in spring. With no deep weedline to speak of, I just ran around the deeper edges of spatterdock with a double-colorado spinnerbait and t-rigged power worm. Both were occasionally effective.

 

The fish were much paler than usual, despite being fairly shallow (4-6 feet), as befits the low-vis situation.

 

Pair of 17"s:

 

Pair of 18"s:

 

Plus a few dinkosaurs.

 

I just know there is a 6-pounder in this lake. One of these days...

Just one on the speedworm right after the sunset near a seawall shadeline.  Just keeping them honest - the bite has been rough.

 

If you can't catch 'em, Pat, they can't be caught...at least, right now. 

Good day fishing the Passaic river.  Got another two small pike on top of the three fish pictured.

 

All came on a spinnerbait while a buddy of mine pitched a wacky rig and waded through about a dozen dinks before landing a solid 3.5lb largemouth.

 

Got on a couple on the 10” Carolina rigged worm. They were sitting on rock piles in 12’. The shallows are totally beat. At this point I just do a milk run of some offshore spots and call it a day. Best fish went 4lb 2oz.

 

 

Managed to slide out onto local Lake Menderchuck for a couple of hours before sunset.

Surface water temp was 81.

Officially the warmest water I've ever caught smallies in.

Either way, still felt really good.

Rage Bug on a swinghead - just saying.

A-Jay

 

May be a couple weeks before I can get back out again due to the heat and humidity returning after a very nice and unusual 3 week reprieve from normal Alabama July. So if I indeed have to keep the lines dry for a bit, I am quite satisfied I managed to get a 5lber Monday morning. Supposed to have 110 degree heat indices for a week straight and I tend to get sick very easily if it's over 90 and can't find shade or AC.

Well Tuesday night is normally the night there is a weeknight kayak tournament that I like to get in on whenever I get off work on time. My assignment for the day had me driving 3 hours each way but I could start as early as I wanted so I could bust it and make it off work on time to get home and get to the lake before the 5:30 launch time. Not sure if anyone is aware of this but apparently the tournament directors weren't, it's hot in the summertime in Kansas. This is the hottest week of the summer so far with temps in the high 90's and heat indexes in the 110's. So a little after noon, they decided to cancel the tournament for the evening instead of just letting the people who don't mind the heat, come out and fish like several of us wanted to. I was more than a little irritated as now they've canceled tournaments for wind, rain, and heat, all of which should be judgement calls on the anglers IMO. 

 

Anyways, several of us on the page decided we were going fishing anyways and met at the lake at take off time and made an identifier for the night and braved the conditions. I set out to flip water willows and was a bit disappointed to find the lake had dropped and there wasn't water in the willows. I still managed to get a few bites, but they were super dinks, barely clearing the 8" minimum. I did get my 3 fish limit doing it though, and nobody else was doing it, or even on the same side of the small lake we were on, so I kept flipping. A little over an hour in, I was starting to have my doubts and considering joining the crowd in the one cove with docks in it, when I pitched into some willows and there was a bunch of movement. I thought maybe I spooked a carp because I didn't get bit, but the fish didn't move far, so I picked up and dropped the bait back in. The weeds shook again, so I popped my bait, and he finally found it. Normally a 15 incher is a solid fish at this lake, so I was real happy to see a 17.25" incher.

I caught a few more, including a decent cull with a 14.50" fish and lost another fish that felt real solid. The sun was getting lower and the bank I wanted to fish in the dock cove had been shaded for a good period of time, so I decided to move to phase 2 of the game plan, hoping that they'd have moved up to the shade on that bank by now. 

 

I cruised across the lake and almost immediately caught a 15.50" fish off a dock ladder with my blue bladed jig. I felt pretty confident about my chances at this point but there was well over a hour left. I caught a couple more small ones before I got to one of my favorite docks. I lined up the right angle and skipped my bladed jig way under the walkway, and caught a dink. "That cast deserved a better fish", I thought out loud to myself and repeated the cast. I never even got the bait moving before a good fish boiled on it. I worked her out from the other side of the dock and netted another 17" fish.

Breaking 50" in a 3 fish tournament is like breaking 90" in a 5 fish tournament, and I'd never done it before. Now I was 1/4" away with 45 minutes left in the night and needing a 15.75" fish to get there, not impossible, but not an easy task either. I kept on down the bank and was surprised to not catch anything down my favorite part of that bank that almost always produces. There's one overhanging tree that for some reason always  seems to have catfish under it in the bend of that bank. I skipped my bladed jig under the tree and got hammered almost immediately and heard the "slap, slap, slap", of a rolling catfish on the surface before it came off, good riddance. I almost moved on but skipped a few more under the tree and finally a parting shot the the front of the walkway of the dock next to that tree. Shortly after I started the retrieve, a big boil hit the surface and a heavy fish was dragging my line under the dock. I was really struggling to control it, positive it was another catfish, when she jumped right under the motor of the pontoon that was tied to the dock, not a catfish. My line was visibly scarred from dragging along the underside of the metal pontoon, and then she dove into my trolling motor for just a second before coming free so I could scoop her in the net. I probably could have got another 1/4" out of her, but at 20", it's my biggest Tuesday night tournament fish and put me well over the 50" mark at 54.25" on the night. It would have been the second biggest total in a Tuesday night tournament ever but it won't could towards that since it wasn't an official tournament. 

 

There was 30 minutes left in the night when I caught that fish, and that would be the last fish I would catch. Second place for the night was 39.75". There was some really great video but I haven't put it all together yet. 

 

P.S. We didn't lose anyone to the heat and it was actually pretty comfortable with a good breeze most of the night until the sun got lower and it started to cool off anyways.  

22 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

So a little after noon, they decided to cancel the tournament for the evening

 

22 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

it's my biggest Tuesday night tournament fish and put me well over the 50" mark at 54.25"

Definitely turned a negative into a positive, Clayton...well done.

This last week has been a bit slow. I haven't been able to make it out onto the water for any longer than an hour at a time, and haven't caught anything substantial. I did get jump scared by a raccoon who snuck up behind me, and stood up with his front paws on my leg like he was begging for snacks or something. I would have taken a picture, but I shouted because I was startled which in turn startled him, and he waddled away in disgust. 😆

 

Anyways, here are this week's dinks:

 

 

 

 

 

@BluegillsTightlines, @A-Jay, and @Bluebasser86:

 

 

@IcatchDinks: Beautiful bass!

My wife outfished me with her 3 wt fly rod the other day on a 2.5 hour float, already missing clear water as ours is yohoo colored 

 

I went fishing with a pal this morning. I had three goals:

 

1. I wanted him to catch a lot of bass.

2. I wanted him to enjoy the morning.

3. I wanted him to catch a four-pounder or bigger.

 

He achieved the following:

 

1. He caught 35 bass. Success!

2. He had a great time. Double score! He commented several times about how beautiful it was in the fog.

3. I caught the four-pounder. Dang it!

 

Here's one of his average bass:

 

 

Here's a 3.5-poundish* bass I caught:

 

 

 

Here's my four-poundish* fish:

 

 

And here's a pond pic:

 

 

I only caught 22, but I was doing nearly all the paddling and a lot of positioning him. The only baits that were working were a wakebait and a spinnerbait. I couldn't catch a single bass on an underspin, which is my main lure. 

 

* "ish" means I'm guessing. My length-to-weight table tells me that when they get up to 19", they're about four pounds and I do know what a 19-incher looks like. I am certain that my biggest bass had a big head and my second biggest bass had a chubby belly and that my fishing buddy did a great job of netting them in deep weeds. That pond is at Peak Weeds right now. 

Couple of river smallies on a spinnerbait and chatterbait.

Weather app said it “feels like” 100 when I called it quits and packed up at 10:15am. ☀️

 

Another evening out - got there a couple hours before sunset, stayed for an hour after that.

 

Quiet night - only got one bass it was all of 14oz. Again on the 1/8oz Shakey with the GP-Magic Finesse Worm.

I went fishing again yesterday evening as I'd taken a pal fishing yesterday morning and whenever I take someone fishing, as much as I love to do that, I miss being able to focus on my fishing. Well, I focused, but for the first hour, could only catch one pickerel. I had a couple weak hits, but no bass. In the final two hours, the fishing picked up and I landed eight brown bass and seven green bass. The smallmouth were all cookie cutter. This size:

 

 

Of course, being smallmouth, there was nothing thin about their fights.

 

The lmb were thicker and they fought like the dickens too:

 

 

Nothing big, but a fun evening. I think the heat and bright, blue skies are why I caught fewer than I normally do. I caught them on a wakebait, spinnerbait, and underspin, the only three lures I tried. The second bass from the bottom was in less than a foot of water, lying in the little river right behind her, a river which hosts Atlantic salmon. However, the best fishing was off-shore, in eight to ten feet of water. 

Got the video wrapped up. Some pretty quality fish catches from a few hours of fishing. 

 

@Bluebasser86

 

Flying freshwater fish? Who knew?

Just now from an extremely pressured and carp choked urban pond. I was actually happy just to see a bass still living in there, and got a decent little belly for the size.

2 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

@Bluebasser86

 

Flying freshwater fish? Who knew?

Got to get them out of those water willows fast or they’ll bury up and it’s impossible to get them out then. Not my fault they were miniatures 😂

3 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Got the video wrapped up. Some pretty quality fish catches from a few hours of fishing. 

 

Little 'flips' into that water willow... messy fishing. I don't enjoy working a t-rig through that stuff. It's definitely not my favorite grass to fish but dadgum some nice ones live in the thick stuff you can't get a moving bait through. That skip under the overhanging tree for the fish @ 15:42 was beautiful. I thought to myself, "oh no he didn't!!"

1 hour ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Got to get them out of those water willows fast or they’ll bury up and it’s impossible to get them out then. Not my fault they were miniatures 😂

 

Sadly, I am the Queen of Bass Burying Themselves in Weeds. So, yeah, I understand your motivation and envy your strength. I think, if a carrier's catapult breaks down, that the Navy could use you to launch their jets.